Obama sees negative campaign ahead
President Obama predicted in an interview airing Monday morning that the upcoming general election campaign could get nasty.
"One of the worries we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are going to be out there. There is going to be just a lot of money floating around. And I guarantee you a bunch off that is going be negative," Mr. Obama told NBC News.
Mr. Obama sought to blame the likely negativity on the outside groups that are not technically associated with the campaign they are supporting but almost exclusively run by former close top aides to the candidate.
"I think that you will be able to see how we conduct ourselves in the campaign. I think it will be consistent with how I conducted myself in 2008 and hopefully how I have conducted myself as president of the United States," Mr. Obama said, referring to mostly positive message of "hope" and "change" that was his signature message four years ago.
In an interview conducted Sunday, Mr. Obama was asked specifically about the recent Republican primary campaign in Florida, where front-runner Mitt Romney defeated former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in part because the super PAC backing the former Massachusetts governor ran millions of dollars of television and radio ads attacking Gingrich.
"It's not going to be enough just to say the other guy is a bum. You've got to explain to the American people what your plan is to make sure there are good jobs and good wages and this economy is growing over the long term and whoever wins that argument I think is going to be the next president," Mr. Obama said in the comments that were aired Monday on the "Today Show."
Mr. Obama said he deserved another four years in office.
"I deserve a second term, but we're not done," Mr. Obama said in the portion of the interview aired Sunday night.
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On the campaign trail, Romney likes to remind Republican primary voters that Mr. Obama told Lauer three years ago that he would be a one-term candidate if he did not fix the economy before the 2012 election.
"When you and I sat down, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. ... Now we're creating 250,000. We've created 3.7 million jobs in the last 23 months. We've created the most jobs since 2005, the most manufacturing jobs since 1990, but we're not finished," Mr. Obama said.